CHIL.ME

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) organized a conference yesterday on ‘EU food sovereignty: the role of agriculture, fisheries and consumers’. The event addressed the importance of food production in the EU, the role of the primary sector and of consumers in ensuring strategic autonomy. As part of the panel, Europêche regretted that despite the generalised improvement in the state of fish stocks, the EU’s self-sufficiency has been steadily declining in the last decade. Currently, the EU only produces 30% of the fish it consumes. As a consequence, Europêche called for a structural shift within the European Commission, specifically proposing the establishment of a dedicated Fisheries Commissioner for the term 2024-2029, separate from environmental affairs, with a strong focus on ensuring food security.

Europeche

Almost three years after submitting the Social Partners’ Agreement (SPA) on implementing the ILO* Work in Fishing Convention C188, the European Commission (EC) presented today, 29th April 2016, the agreement before the Council of the EU. The European Social Partners for Fisheries, Europêche, Cogeca and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF)**, have warmly welcomed this step but regret the considerable delay with implementing the SPA that ensures a high level of protection for fishermen in all aspects of their work. The Social Partners call upon all EU Member States to support the proposal for a Council Directive and urge them to ratify ILO Convention 188.